


We Speak in Flowers

by Seven_tan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry, M/M, Multi, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 19:35:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3261836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seven_tan/pseuds/Seven_tan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is given a second chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Tea Rose

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be long. this is also going to be awesome.

“I can't believe this.”

Hermione's voice was low and thick, rough with tears. Her hair, tied back in a neat plait over her shoulder, eyes rimmed red and knuckles white where she gripped the side of his bed. His own eyes were patiently blank: he'd heard the news long before she'd gotten wind of it, his owl indisposed and the floo not available in his room in St. Mungo's.

Harry Potter was finally going to die.

He'd been hit with some nasty combination of curses; an unfortunate side effect of being one of the best Aurors was also that frankly, he got the best and most dangerous cases. This assignment had actually been reasonably straightforward: a cult of warlocks had been kidnapping, torturing, and finally sacrificing people to some variety of Pride Demon, presumably in exchange for some boon or another ( _the true motivations of warlocks_ , he'd written in his report on day two of him sitting alone in the hospital, _are thankfully indiscernible to those of us with the vast majority of our faculties_ ). As Healer Marion had able to distinguish, blood magic had been at the root of at least two. Not reassuring. Blood magic, in Harry's experience, muddied the magical signatures of those involved, and often twisted curses into completely unrecognizable forms.

He should know; two of the other Aurors working on this case and his own partner had been killed by the same thing, if not exactly the same specific combination.

The exact curses that he'd been hit with were near impossible to identify, meaning the necessary counter curses were also out of reach of even the most skilled Healers. Harry had been in the hospital now for two weeks, and where he'd been able to go for walks in the courtyard and write various owls (and his report) in the first, over the course of the second week his condition had deteriorated very rapidly. He doubted he could stand, now, he could barely lift his own hand.  The ends of his fingers and below his knee had been blackened with runes, splitting his skin in winding bloody slits, his face slick with sweat. The fever and the blood loss were both stemmed by symptomatic magic, though it was merely a relief, not a cure. The curses themselves had burned their way through his Auror robes, leaving his chest blackened and burned by cursed fire.

Hermione's fingertips, he noted, were also blackened, although ink was far more likely to be the culprit than curses. Her work at the ministry had kept her busy, likely why it had taken her so long to visit. Ron had not been to visit. Ron hadn't been to visit, actually, since he'd shouted himself hoarse about Harry breaking off his engagement to Ginny six months ago. Frankly, Harry doubted he'd be by.

“Harry.”

Hermione's voice shook, though she swallowed and tried to cover it. He moved his own shaking hand to cover hers, her plain gold wedding band cold against his palm.

She'd always had a way of knowing what he was thinking, even though his blackened tongue made speech impossible. 

“I'll talk to him. He'll come. He'll come, I promise you.”

Harry quirked his lips up. Even if Ron agreed to come, he wouldn't be there in time. He could feel his heart beat slower than ever, his breaths were shallow., with a smoky slick residue in his throat, likely from buildup in his lungs.  She smiled weakly, and he smoothed his thumb over her knuckles.

She always did have a way of knowing.

Hermione got up to leave, collecting her coat and bags. The flowers she brought, delicate pink cyclamen and tea roses, were left on the bedside table as she wound her long knitted scarf over her neck and donned her overcoat.  Her braid brushed against his collarbone as she kissed his forehead, just below his scar.

Everyone has regrets when they die. 

Harry didn't survive the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is going to be long. this is also going to be awesome.   
> Cyclamen: Resignation and Good-bye  
> Tea Rose: I'll remember; always


	2. 1: Hydrangea

A long throb in his forehead woke him, his scar lit up like a flare. Harry groaned, pressed his palm to it and sat upright, bed creaking below him.

And then he paused.

Threadbare sheets. Hediwg's cage nestled in the corner, his window open (his mind supplied) so she could return in the night. Floorboards that he hadn't seen for nearly two decades covered in laundry that he hadn't seen for maybe the same amount of time. He still had all of the fingers on his right hand. The familiar pull of the scar across his back and shoulder were gone.

Harry trembled, leaned out of bed, and stood quietly.

Privet Drive.

Why was he here? _How_ was he here? He'd died! His heart had stopped, he'd _felt_ it.

 _Perhaps you did_ , a traitorous voice in his mind supplied. _Perhaps this is the endless dream of the dead. Maybe you get to relive the worst parts of your life instead of the best, reliving your failures over and over._

But no, that was unlikely. He certainly didn't feel dead, none of the easy, smooth euphoria he'd been promised in his brief glimpse of it in his seventh year.

He leaped at the sudden inspiration. Prying the loose floorboard up, he snatched up a letter written in Hermione's disturbingly neat script, promising more sweets when she could send them. When he turned it over, the envelope's stamp was dated for 1994.

Fourth year then. Well, at least he knew when and where he was, if not how.

He looked himself over in the cracked mirror: young, the charm on his eyes had obviously not carried over beyond the barrier of death and/or time so his reflection was slightly blurry, the lightning scar was deep and vivid, unlike the thin, white line he'd become used to. Harry resisted the urge to laugh.

This wasn't possible.

His hands, uncreased and unscarred, trembled when he looked at them. The breeze from outside wafted in through the open window, bringing the strong smell of flowers and the cool chill of night.

Was he dead? Did something go wrong, did the curses send him back?

Maybe this was his second chance. Maybe Fate or Death or any number of other things named pretentiously with capital letters had taken a liking to him and decided that he gets to make the right choices this time. Maybe this time, less people would die. Maybe he would get his proper family. He was certainly going to try.

The boards creaked as he lifted them up again, snatching up a short spare roll of parchment and an elegant quill.

 _Peter Pettigrew is either in Albania or at the old Riddle house whose location is unclear to me,_ he wrote in his usual scrawl after a long pause where he tried to remember where Pettigrew should be, not bothering with an introduction. _Bertha Jenkins is likely already dead. Saw it in a dream. Pettigrew should be our priority._

Folding the letter, he hastily stuffed it into an envelope, scratching out _Dumbledore_ on the front and sealing it with a flourish. He thought about adding a better explanation rather than lying outright to his headmaster, but really anything he could come up with sounded positively mad. Dumbledore needed to act now, before Voldemort could become any more powerful. If he could delay Voldemort's rise by even a month, that would buy him time enough to get things sorted with the Order, and perhaps even to get a head start on the Horcruxes.

Harry whistled sharply out the window before he remembered that Vernon would likely wake at the sound, and before he realized that Hedwig would be answering his call, not the screech owl he and his partner had shared at work, Solas.

The air was still however, though he could hear his cousin shuffle about through the thin wall. Hedwig did return promptly, surprisingly, sitting on the sill and refusing to move until Harry had given her a treat and a good petting when he tied the letter around her leg.

His tongue curled behind his top teeth. Merlin, how did he get into this mess.

_

The next day was possibly even more surreal. The Dursley's didn't say a word to him when he went down for breakfast, though when Aunt Petunia placed the grapefruit on his plate and nothing else he was reminded of the diet that Dudley had been put on for this summer, thanks to his end of term report from Smeltings. Remembering the assorted sweets he'd found under the floorboard last night, he delighted at Dudley's and Vernon's discomfort, happily chomping away at the grapefruit and reminding himself that he had extra food should they decide that he was to suffer even more than Dudley (which, if he recalled correctly, they would, as usual). After the uncomfortable issue of Mr. Weasley's stamp covered letter explaining to the Dursley's that he would be taking him to the World Cup come Monday (and of course, having to blackmail his uncle into letting him go, thank you Sirius), Harry threw himself into the menial household tasks Aunt Petunia had assigned him, scrubbing the porch and pruning the hydrangeas. There was certainly something to be said for physical labour to take his mind off of the impossibility of his situation. When he returned from work, Vernon shouted himself purple for “All the bloody racket” Harry had made last night, and looked as if he'd enjoy nothing more than leaning over and throttling him. He got no dinner as punishment, though his Uncle didn't lay a hand on him. He'd forgotten what kind of influence having notorious mass murderer Sirius Black for a Godfather had on his Aunt and Uncle, but he certainly wasn't complaining.

Hedwig returned later that night when Harry was exhausted from housework, a quick note in Dumbledore's elegant hand clutched in her claw. She preened when Harry took it with a grin, and hopped into her cage happily, bending to drink. He sat on his bed, opening the letter carefully.

_Well done, Harry. Peter Pettigrew is in ministry custody, charged with the murder of Bertha Jorkins. I will personally be questioning him about your parents. There will be Justice Harry, I promise you this._

He'd signed off in his usual impossible flurry of loops, and Harry could have danced. Hopefully that meant that Pettigrew would be put under Veritaserum. In the best case scenario, Sirius would be cleared of all charges.

Speaking of.

He hadn't bothered to put away the parchment and quill from last night, and he sorely expected that he'd be writing letters for a good portion of the rest of the summer if these two days were any indication. He'd have homework too, of course, but no doubt he could finish most of it within minutes. This was much more important.

_Padfoot:_

(his scrawl was almost illegible in his excitement)

_You probably already know, but Wormtail has been caught. Dumbledore is going to question him. I'd stay hidden for now, but this is truly excellent news. Hopefully the Ministry will fess up._ _Ron's got tickets for the World Cup: Ireland versus Bulgaria. I'm excited for that; my money's on Ireland!_

_Looking forward to seeing you in person. I've missed you something terrible._

_H_

The last was truer than Sirius would hopefully ever know.

He also wrote out, with less gusto, a return letter to Ron saying he'd go to the World Cup and sent both of them out with Hedwig, telling her to visit Ron first. Not like he'd miss a chance to see that again, when he'd not been able to play Quidditch for so long.

Ah.

The Triwizard Tournament had canceled the Quidditch season this year, hadn't it. Bugger. He'd completely forgotten it.

Well, after fifteen years as a top Auror, if he'd been able to handle Dragons, Underwater Search and Rescue, and a hedge maze at fourteen, he'd certainly have the skill to handle it now.

Though now that he'd thought about it, how was he going to manage covering that up? He was reminded suddenly that he wasn't actually supposed to know half of the shit he did. Fourteen-year-old's shouldn't know how to take down ogres and put up wards. He could Apparate easy as breathing, and he wasn't even eligible to try for his license.

He was struck by the thought that he didn't really remember being fourteen. Certainly, he remembered what had happened that year, but definitely not what he'd been thinking through most of it, nor what had given him the most trouble in school other than the obvious (Potions, he thought miserably, was going to be a hell of a ride in September. Snape was in for a nasty surprise). His voice might crack and his legs might be long and knobby, but that didn't make him any more like a regular kid. He'd stick out even more than ever. Hermione was going to have a field day. Harry could only hope that her damn perceptiveness wasn't up to snuff, or he'd be found out in minutes.

Pigwidgeon flew through the window excitedly and zoomed about his room, carrying another letter from Ron, and zoomed back out again with little ceremony, waiting only for a treat before he was off.

Resolutely, he climbed into bed, resting his glasses on the bedside. He'd try and remember in the morning how to make a complete fool of himself and moon over girls. For now he'd just have to be even more incredible than he was used to being; a fourteen year old capable of doing magic some adults couldn't even dream of.

_

The days passed quickly. Harry kept his nose down and his tongue in check, cooking and cleaning and what have you for his aunt and uncle. He wrote a letter to Minister Fudge, saying that he would testify as needed in the case against Peter Pettigrew for the murder of his parents, and heavily recommending that the ministry make the whole affair of Sirius' arrest and re-trial public, though he'd have to wait for Hedwig to return to send it.

It was near a week before he heard back from Sirius himself via a tawny owl he didn't recognize, his letters as loopy and wild as Harry remembered them.

_Harry;_

_I've been moving back north._ _I don't know how you did it, but Dumbledore says that you're responsible for Wormtail's capture._ (Harry noted that Hedwig had returned much earlier than he'd remembered. Maybe he'd been closer than the first time around, or maybe Dumbledore's letter had gotten to him first and he was feeling daring enough to Apparate closer) _You have no idea how grateful I am, Harry. Moony's heard some rumbling that they're to release new information on my case soon. I'm damn sure that's your doing too, clever bastard. I can't believe it._

_If all goes according to plan, next summer you'll be staying with me instead of that awful Aunt and Uncle of yours. I hope they're treating you well enough. I'll have words with Dumbledore about their treatment of you when this is all sorted, mark me._

The letter was unsigned, of course, but just the reminder that Sirius could actually respond to his letters was enough to bring Harry to actual tears. He was due to leave for the World Cup in a few days time, something that he was looking forward to immensely, and had happily suggested that they perhaps pick him up by car instead of floo, since he didn't have a fireplace to avoid the disaster that was a good portion of their family being jammed behind the Dursely's electric fireplace the last time.

He Happily sent off his letter to the Minister with the tawny, as soon as he'd assessed that he would actually be willing to deliver a letter for him, and, when he didn't receive a reply within short order, he casually informed him thus:

_Incarcerating a man without trial, wizard or no, is considered an international crime under the Geneva convention, Minister Fudge. I'd suggest that you treat this matter with respect, less someone with the wrong ideas about what happened in Bartholomew Crouch's investigation of Mr. Black approach the British Government._

Needless to say, he got a letter with very sincere thanks from the Minister, as well as the official court date for Sirius' re-trial, which he had happily offered to testify at (August the twenty second, 9 AM, courtroom four).

He'd also written Professor Lupin, asking him how his summer had been so far, thanking him for last year, and ended hoping that they could keep in touch. Of course he'd received a response through Lupin's own owl (Lupin had neat, slim handwriting that was very easy to read), that Lupin was studying Each-usige in a Scottish bog alongside several other researchers mostly of Ministry employ. He expressed the mild fancy of writing a book about Dark Creatures, which Harry encouraged in his reply. The tawny owl hadn't returned after that, perhaps his patience with Harry had run thin. He would have to wait for Hedwig to return from her ultimately pointless trip to Sirius.

Through the next few days, he was barely fed table scraps, probably due to the sudden influx of owls moving in and out of the Dursley household, and Harry had forgotten what it was like to be hungry most of the time. Sure, he'd skipped lunch a few days a week at work, and had often had to go days without eating properly when on a mission, but there was nothing like deliberate near-starvation to keep you on your toes. His stomach rumbled practically constantly, though he payed it no mind, focusing instead on housework and his letters. Every now and again he'd fantasize about heading to Mrs. Figg's for a pastie or four, and even the prospect of her house smelling constantly like cat urine couldn't put him off the imaginary prospect of food. No wonder he'd always been thought of as scrawny (he regarded himself critically in the cracked mirror one evening), he was practically all bones.

Merlin, he couldn't wait to get back to Hogwarts. At least there he had proper food.

It wasn't particularly like he'd forgotten that the Dursley's had hated him. It was just that, really, he'd forgotten that they'd _hated_ him, and for no good reason at that. No doubt mostly Vernon's influence. It wouldn't surprise Harry to know that he would have found any excuse to beat the hell out of him, wizard or no. But really, abusing a child wasn't something he likely even needed an excuse for. Harry suspected that if he hadn't been dropped off here, it might have been Dudley that took the brunt of things instead of himself. Not for the first time, he wondered why he was staying here, especially after fourth year when the ancient blood protection charm that Dumbledore had cast had stopped working thanks to Voldemort's potion. Perhaps it was simply more convenient that way. Maybe Dumbledore didn't really think he had anywhere else to go.

Really though, now that he thought about it, where would he have gone? Not like he would have even trusted himself with a London flat at that age, let alone after that kind of trauma. And Lupin and the Weasley's were frankly too poor to take care of another mouth, and the Headmaster himself was likely far too busy. He ran through several other possibilities for guardians, and discarded most of them without a second thought.

Dumbledore had probably been right. Didn't especially mean that Harry had to like it though.

_

This time around, the Weasley's came to pick him up by car as he'd instructed. The plan was to first travel to the ministry, drop off the car that Mr. Weasley had borrowed, and then floo to the Burrow, where they would Portkey to the Cup tomorrow morning. Most of this was likely to be the exact same as the last time around, though Harry would happily admit to not remembering most of it, thanks to it having been literally twenty years since he'd done this. Though he'd often wished for one, he didn't have a photographic memory, and the finer details were quite lost.

In the car itself, Harry was jammed in between the twins in the backseat each of them with an arm around his shoulder. Ron was chatting cheerfully with his father in the passengers seat, and Harry felt a pang that he decided to ignore, focusing instead on the other, closer occupants of the car.

Fred and George were a sight to behold. Never mind that in Harry's memory one of them had been dead for almost twenty years, they were grinning like mad, making forms, and chattering lowly about Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Baby faced, with shoulder length hair and grins so wide they threatened to split their faces; Harry hadn't seen George with a look like that since his brother died, though he'd seen the ghost of it flicker often. To have it back in full force was. Well. It was something else.

“D'you have any suggestions, Harry?” George grinned lowly, gesturing at the form.

“We'd love to hear 'em. See, me an' George have been thinking about this for months! It'd be nice to get a fresh brain in on it, yeah?” Fred's voice was low, and identical grin on his lips but a different intonation to his voice. Harry had never realized how easy it was to tell them apart: not by looks, but definitely by the way they spoke: different inflections to different words, Fred's voice slightly higher than George's. It likely helped that he'd spent so much time with George after Fred had died, meaning he could pick up which of them sounded different much more easily.

As a matter of fact, he did have a few “ideas” for WWW, having been George's beta tester for the vast majority of his projects. A broomstick lolly that made you levitate when you'd finished it, shampoo that would change a person's entire body hair to a colour of their choice (“Good one!”), and temporary wizarding tattoos (“Bloody excellent, why didn't we do this sooner, Gerogie?” ) were the only three that Harry could name off the top of his head, but it drove them wild with excitement.

He'd just gotten into fireworks shaped like dragons when they rolled into the Ministry parking, and Harry quickly stopped at the look Mr. Weasley gave him and collected his things from the trunk. Ron looked put out, and it was only then that Harry realized that he'd been avoiding talking to him.

This Ron hadn't actually done anything wrong yet, and Harry was cross with himself for failing to recognize that. He should at least have the opportunity to be a prat before you punish him for it.

He made sort of stilted conversation with Ron on the way to the men's toilets about what he'd gotten up to over the summer. Thankfully, he was happy to simply talk while Harry bobbed along, nodding his head in the right places. He wasn't exactly sure what he'd talk about, his experiences over the summer having been mundane, and everything before that would have had him sounding like a complete nutter and they'd have hastily swept him off to St. Mungo's, and frankly he'd had enough of that place for right now, thanks very much. When Ron finished recounting what seemed like his entire summer, Harry simply started up on all the letters he'd been writing, and told Ron about Pettigrew's trial, which he goggled at.

“You mean you hadn't heard? Mate, it's been all over the news! People are calling for a re-investigation into the whole affair! It's bloody brilliant!” Ron was grinning, and gestured wildly. “I've heard even the Muggle papers have something to say about it, but of course you'd know better than me?”

He didn't. He told Ron as much, and also maybe to keep his voice down, as they were kind of in a Muggle parking lot.

“Oh. Well.” he went pink about the ears, but quieted his voice regardless. “I dunno, but they think there's some funny business about the way things went down, or that's the story they were fed anyway.”

They flushed themselves down the toilets with little ceremony after that, and Mr. Weasley swept them off to and through the public Floo as they all made idle, excited chatter about the cup.

Harry stepped through the small fireplace and into the Burrow with much more elegance than was possibly accounted for, given that this was supposedly his second trip through the network. He brushed off his sweater, and picked up his trunk and Hedwig's cage in just enough time for Fred to come careening through, nearly knocking him over.

“Harry dear!” Mrs. Weasley cried, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek loudly. “It's lovely to see you. I hope those muggles treated you alright?” She asked, but whisked back to the kitchen without waiting for an answer. He happily followed Ron upstairs, telling him to grab Hedwig's cage.

Harry hauled everything upstairs and deposited it at the foot of the spare bed in Ron's room. He suspected that Hermione was downstairs already, with Ginny and Mrs. Weasley, and he set off to join them.

Dinner was a boisterous affair, though Harry was relatively subdued. Bill and Charlie we (re)introduced to him, and he nodded politely, ignoring the clutch in his chest at Bill's scar-less face. Afterwards, he went to study with Hermione a bit (which she was very confused about, but also very proud of him for), and after an hour or so of flipping through the new potions text which of course she'd picked up early, he went to go visit with Ron.

“Mate, is everything alright? You seem kinda tense.”

The moment he sat down on the spare, Ron was on the topic in an instant. He was kind of irritatingly perceptive sometimes, but it was a good trait to have. He'd made up his mind over dinner that he was going to get this over with, that maybe if Ron didn't have the opportunity to get used to the idea of Harry being straight he would come around more quickly.

Harry braced himself. His last conversation about this had blown up in his face pretty badly, but at least this time he hadn't had to date his sister before he'd figured it out. He did hope that this time would turn out a little better than shouting matches and thrown dinner plates, followed by six months of not talking to each other and culminating in him actually dying. As much as Ron was kind of a prat at the best of times, he'd really missed his best mate. “Ron, I got to tell you something.”

Ron's bed creaked, “All ears, mate.”

“I'm into blokes.”

His face was about as red as Ron's hair, though his voice was cool and calm. He'd already done this once before, really, and that had ended as badly as it could have possibly gone. He was cautiously optimistic about the second time around.

“I mean, girls are great. I'm still a little bit into girls.” He admitted. “So, not gay, yeah? Bisexual. Just. Mostly into blokes.” he cut himself off before he started rambling nervously.

The room had gone dark, so there was no hope of seeing Ron's face as they sat there in silence. There wasn't shouting just yet, and nothing had been actively thrown at him (hexes included), Harry supposed that was likely a good sign, but the air was as tense as Harry's shoulders.

“Is that what's been bothering you?”

Ron's voice was calm, though there was an undercurrent of something he couldn't place, and he let out a long breath. “Yeah.” Harry shrugged. “Well. I was worried about what you'd say when I told you,” again, “but yeah, same thing.” His voice was as casual as possible, but it sounded forced even from his perspective, and he knew Ron would be able to tell.

There was a hesitant laugh, sort of disbelieving. “You're, uh.” Ron started, but didn't seem to know how to finish because he paused, sounding half amused and half horrified. “You're not into me are you mate? Because I dunno if I could handle that.”

Harry shook his head, laughing lightly, “Nah. But, um. You can handle the rest of it?” He wasn't even going to bother trying to hide that he sounded nervous anymore, but this was going absolutely smashingly compared to the last time. Harry was going to push his luck just a little.

“It's gonna be weird.” Ron admitted, cautiously, “But I think I could. I dunno. Get used to the idea? It's going to be shit not having you to talk about girls with though. Blimey mate, girls are ridiculous, you've no idea how lucky you are.”

“Bisexual, remember?” Harry's laugh was genuine, and kind of loud, but he didn't care. This was awesome, this was. This was so, so good. Better than Harry could have even dreamed. “And girls aren't so different mate, they're just better at hiding how awkward they are.” Though, really, Hermione had never been the best at covering that up. He wondered how he could discreetly set her and Krum up in something perhaps a bit more permanent. She'd never seemed terribly happy being married to Ron, but maybe that was because she was constantly playing mediator between the two of them.

Perhaps he could convince her in sixth year to give Zabini a go. He'd been enamoured with her ever since she'd started working for the ministry, and he suspected that maybe he'd held a bit of a candle for her since Slughorn's party. He pondered the various pros and cons of him setting her up with various suitors while he and Ron made idle chatter (eventually settling on Zabini - Krum could handle himself, but really, Zabini was much better looking and much more clever than Krum, if considerably less famous), eventually falling slowly into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hydrangea: In a negative sense, they symbolize frigidity and heartlessness. Gratitude for being understood when given as a gift


End file.
